‘You want to pretend you don’t want that?’ He raised an eyebrow, faintly mocking her.
‘I’m not pretending anything.’
‘So you admit you want me.’
She swallowed.
‘I don’t want you.’
‘Is this the game we’re back to playing?’ he asked quietly, dangerously, enough to make her skin prickle in warning. ‘Because I can tell you now, Alex, that I’m bored with it.’
‘We agreed this was a business arrangement. A marriage in name only. We agreed there would be no sex.’
If only her body wasn’t protesting every word she was saying.
‘We didn’t agree anything of the sort,’ Louis stated calmly. ‘It was never discussed.’
‘Because it went without saying.’
‘No, because I always assumed somewhere down the line you’d give up your ridiculous notion of pretending this intense attraction between us didn’t exist.’
‘So you always planned to seduce me.’ She crossed her arms disdainfully.
‘I was always expecting this moment to arise. I was always waiting for you to tell me you wanted me. And exactly where you wanted me,’ he countered, the deliberate emphasis causing another blush to colour her cheeks.
‘That’s why you made me say it.’
‘I just wanted to hear it,’ he said softly. ‘And I intend to hear it again and again in the weeks and months to come.’
‘You won’t,’ she bit out. ‘Because this will never happen again. Nothing like this can ever happen between us again.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, amour.’ His calm tone was almost worse than if he’d been angry. ‘Because now that I know just how much you want me, now that I have irrefutable proof of how incredible we would be together, I have no intention of this marriage being merely a charade.’
‘You can’t make me...’
‘Of course not,’ he scorned. ‘Neither would I ever dream of it. But I would never have to. You will come to me.’
‘No, I most certainly won’t.’ Was her thudding heart because of her conviction, or because she was terribly afraid that he was right?
‘You will,’ he assured her, his wicked smile going right to her core, where she was still soft, still wet from his masterful play. ‘Just like you did this morning.’
She couldn’t seem to stop her teeth from worrying at her lip. As long as they were in such close proximity there was a good chance she would once again give in to the baser needs that Louis seemed to have unearthed in her.
She tipped her head back, barely stopping herself from rising up onto her toes.
‘Then it’s lucky you’re working away in France for the next month or so.’
As victories went, it didn’t feel like much of one. Rather, she felt empty at the prospect.
‘Luckier still that you’re coming with me.’
She told herself that her heart didn’t leap. His unwavering gaze didn’t help matters.
‘I can’t. I have work.’
‘You can and you have to. I’ll deal with the hospital. If we’re to convince the press we’re together, that this engagement is a true whirlwind romance and not a sham, then you have no choice. That’s if you want me to claim control of the Lefebvre Group and save Rainbow House, of course. What is more important to you? This false sense of pride or Rainbow House?’
He had her. They both knew it. She still quashed the part of her that rejoiced at the knowledge.
‘Then this nonsensical exchange is over?’
She opened her mouth to object but knew she couldn’t. His wry smile still turned her on.
‘Good. So, we shall be staying at Chateau Rochepont—’
‘Your family estate?’ she cut in. ‘The press will have a field day. You’ve never taken any woman back there.’
Her body felt compressed, tight, too small for her skin. It was only intensified by his inscrutable expression.
Had this always been part of the plan? Or had it developed in the last few minutes?
‘All the more reason to make a point of it now, don’t you think?’
‘I can’t—’
‘It’s non-negotiable.’
He was back to his Louis voice. Imperious, inflexible. Part of her didn’t even care. He wanted her with him. Nevertheless, she shook her head.
‘Louis, I can’t... I need more time... I...’
‘The point of you moving in here was to be with me so that I could help you avoid the media after last night at the restaurant. If I’m not around, who will protect you?’
‘I can look after myself,’ she argued. ‘Besides, surely the very fact that you have all this security to get up here makes it safer than my little house. I still have to go to the hospital, carry out my work.’
‘They can replace you.’
‘I owe it to Gordon to give him time to choose a replacement.’ She knew that would halt him. Louis respected her mentor as much as she did. She pressed her advantage. ‘A temporary replacement.’
‘Fine. I’ll give you three days. But don’t say I didn’t warn you that the press would hound you. I’ll trust you not to let them rattle you.’
‘Louis—’
‘Three days, Alex, and then you will join me out there,’ he said, shutting her down. ‘It will be the perfect setting for a public proposal to cement our plan.’
Her throat was suddenly painfully dry.
‘The plan.’ She wasn’t sure how she managed to nod, let alone speak. ‘Right.’
‘And, Alex...’ His voice rasped, pushing down the feeble defences she was frantically trying to reinstate. ‘We will be revisiting what happened here this morning. I can promise you that much.’
She told herself that the gurgling sensation was her stomach roiling at Louis’s highhandedness, and not a bubbling excitement at being alone with him for the next month or so.
She almost believed it, too.
CHAPTER NINE
‘RIGHT, I NOW have your bloodwork results, your MRI and EMG. And I can say that I believe that facial decompression surgery is a good treatment option in your case, since there isn’t any damage to the facial nerve itself.’
He smiled gently as his patient and her partner promptly dissolved into tears of joy. The paralysis that had left one half of her face severely drooped had affected her confidence and quality of life considerably and other less invasive treatments of the paralysis had been unsuccessful.
It was good to be delivering positive news, but ultimately Louis couldn’t help but feel happy today for anything which would keep his mind off the fact that Alex would be arriving in less than a couple of hours. In fact, she would probably be getting ready to board the plane right about now.
It still needled him that he’d had to fight her about taking his own private jet instead of some commercial airline. That she hadn’t just obeyed him. Accepted that the private plane would make her life—and flight—far more pleasant. No doubt she’d been making a point to him. But he didn’t care. She had acquiesced in the end and she was coming, and the latter was what really mattered. The chemistry had been there all along but the fact that, for the first time in his life, he was resisting it had to be the reason Alexandra Vardy got under his skin in a way that no other woman ever had.
While she’d pretended to him, and to herself, that she didn’t want sex, he’d kept his distance as best he could. But hearing her acknowledge that she wanted him had been pivotal. It had been the moment he’d realised that if he wanted to conquer this apparent longing he’d inconveniently developed for the woman, he was going to have to take every opportunity to slake this effervescing thirst for each other.
He’d told her to call it a break away, and he hadn’t been entirely joking. Getting Alex away from work, from the UK, from the press, would no doubt help her to relax. M
ake her see that denying the attraction that thundered between them was only feeding it all the more. Once they’d slaked their physical desire they could get on with the task in hand without such unwanted complications.
He carefully ignored the voice that echoed in his head that he was being naïve, and pulled his concentration back to his patient before it could wander too far. Another thing that had never, not once, happened to him in his professional life with any other woman before.
‘At this stage my plan would be to carry out a mastoidectomy, which is where I would remove part of the mastoid bone behind your ear in order that your inflamed facial nerve might have enough room to expand, thereby relieving some of the pressure that is no doubt causing some of the symptoms of your facial paralysis.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ the woman choked out. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘I’m sure you already know this,’ he encouraged, ‘but the facial nerve, also known as the cranial nerve VII, serves many vital functions, not just the motor function that allows you to smile and frown. Although we always prefer the smiling.’
His gentle joking elicited a smile, as he’d hoped it would, keeping them positive and engaged so that he could get across as much important information as he could.
‘The anticipation would be that, as well as some facial control, you should experience some degree of return of gland function in your eyes, nose and mouth, making it easier to close your eye and even to blink, so there would be less need for the eyedrops all the time; and improvements to both your senses of smell and taste.’
‘And if the drooping is reduced then she’ll be less prone to accidentally biting her inner cheek, right, Doc?’ the patient’s partner asked, and Louis couldn’t help noticing the way the couple squeezed hands in a silent, supportive conversation of their own.
Though there was no logical explanation, it made him think of Alex all over again.
‘It should,’ he agreed. ‘So fewer ulcerations and infections. But, as I said, it won’t wholly reverse the paralysis. And I do need to warn you that it might take up to a year for optimal results, and there will still be a significant degree of asymmetry.’
‘That’s okay,’ she managed, her barely contained emotion making her sound slightly more indistinct than usual. ‘It’s better than what I have now.’
‘And how is work?’ Louis asked as carefully as he could. ‘Are your colleagues understanding about your condition?’
‘Actually, I’m a teaching assistant specialising in children with severe learning difficulties. Some of them just asked outright, a few of them were a little unsettled in the beginning, and some of them struggle anyway with emotions and empathy. However, I’m lucky that for the most part, as long as I act the same towards them, give them the same love and care, it doesn’t really matter to them how I look.’
‘That’s good.’ He forced an understanding smile onto his face.
Even as he walked the couple to the door, his mouth still talking to them, his mind was on Alex.
Why was it that everything seemed to pull him straight back around to her? The way that, unlike his patient, it hadn’t mattered what she’d done, she was never going to win her father’s love. Never going to make him forgive her for not being a match for her brother. For not being the saviour sibling. Something that had never been within her control.
And yet, despite all that, she still fought so damned fiercely for Rainbow House.
How many other kids were like Alex?
Like him?
It struck him that there had to be more he could do to help. Not just Rainbow House, but places like it. For Alex. For his mother. For himself.
He might be pretending to the world that he was changing, he might even convince them all. But that was all about perceptions. Up until now he hadn’t really believed he would change. Not deep down.
Maybe he could.
Alex seemed to believe it.
Closing the door behind the couple, Louis picked up his ringing phone, knowing exactly who it was going to be, and part of him wished he could just ignore it and will his father away.
And yet he should be celebrating. Rejoicing in the fact that if Jean-Baptiste was calling him, it was because he was beginning to panic. Because his father was being forced to recognise that support for Louis was beginning to gain momentum.
It should fill him with jubilation. Instead, it was shadowed by Louis’s delight in knowing that in a matter of hours Alex would be back in his life. Tonight, he was determined, she would be back in his arms.
His father was little more than an unwelcome interruption.
‘Oui?’ Louis demanded curtly, clicking it onto speakerphone and sliding the phone across his desk as he busied his hands with sorting a few files.
His father’s fast, angry tone barked at him in Franglais, a sure sign that he was mad.
‘You’re seeing la putain who tried to corner me at the gala soirée?’
Louis sucked in a deep breath. Then another.
He would not allow himself to be baited.
‘I’m seeing Alexandra Vardy, a respected doctor at Silveroaks Hospital. She’s Gordon’s protégé,’ he added with painstaking breeziness. ‘I know you’d be impressed if you saw how skilled an anaesthetist she is. Oh, and I should also inform you that Alex is coming out to the estate.’
‘No, she most certainly is not.’
‘Too late, I’m afraid,’ Louis injected with deliberate calmness. ‘She’s already around thirty-six thousand feet.’
The silence suggested his father was uncharacteristically apoplectic in his characteristic rage. Louis almost smiled into the silent phone, though it was a hard, brittle excuse for a smile.
‘I forbid it,’ Jean-Baptiste spluttered eventually.
And there again was the easily enraged man Louis knew all too well. It was gratifying to know that not everyone had been fooled by the knight-in-shining-scrubs reputation that the media had painted all these years.
‘I’m not asking permission,’ Louis stated in a tone so cold he could bet it would rival the Norwegian ice hotel where his father had taken his latest squeeze. ‘The estate is my home, too. I’m merely taking this opportunity to inform you. Call it courtesy. This way, you don’t have to engage in another disagreeable phone call to verify what will no doubt be in tomorrow’s papers.’
‘I know you lied to my security team to save her from the humiliation of being ejected from the ball like the unwelcome stray dog that she was. I know you play to your reputation as a playboy, Louis, but even you could have done better than scraps like that.’
Jean-Baptiste was goading him. Louis knew it. And still he clenched his fists at the barely disguised snide tone. He couldn’t let the older man think he was winning. Not where Alex was concerned. Still, he had no idea how he managed it.
‘Alex did mention you and she had had a little...misunderstanding that night.’
‘Un malentendu?’ the older man exploded, as much at Louis’s calmness as at his words, but it still felt like a hollow victory. ‘It was no misunderstanding. She threatened to go to the press with how the Lefebvre Group and the Delaroche Foundation are composed of one and the same board. The vitriolic little putain tried to claim she knew that I was transferring assets simply to sell them off and line my own pockets.’
‘We both know that isn’t true although, to be fair, her assumption was based on her knowledge at the time.’ Louis forced himself to stay civil. He would not lose his cool. He could not. ‘But don’t worry, I’ve since set her straight.’
‘Meaning?’ The snarl rolled down the line.
‘Meaning that I assured her you weren’t using the Delaroche Foundation to shut down Rainbow House simply for financial gain.’
Deliberate, aimed, striking true. The silence was almost lethal.
‘You told her about your mother’s ac
cident.’
‘More or less.’ Louis shrugged. ‘They weren’t my exact words.’
The gutter-level curses his father was uttering were another long-overdue, satisfying strike. Louis had a few choice names of his own he would like to throw back. But he didn’t. He restrained himself, knowing Alex wouldn’t approve, and it was amazing how her good opinion was suddenly driving his actions.
The cursing stopped abruptly and silence cracked instead. Air practically whistled down the phone. Icy and foreboding.
‘Be very careful which side you choose to be on, Louis. Or you may find yourself dealing with questions about your mother concerning things I’m certain you would far prefer the press didn’t know.’
The threat insinuated itself through the ether, filling up Louis’s office until he was reaching for a window, as if the toxicity was as real as the air he was breathing.
He reached a hand up to tug at the shirt collar that suddenly seemed to have closed around his neck. He had no idea how he kept his voice as calm, as level, as he did.
‘Are you threatening to tell them she committed suicide?’
‘What do they say, the truth will always out?’
Emotions coursed through Louis so fast and so violent that he wasn’t sure how he remained upright.
‘Then perhaps it’s time it did,’ he managed. ‘Perhaps they might ask the questions I was always too afraid of you to ask. Such as why such a strong, loyal, connected woman should be so beaten down by her husband that she felt she had no alternative than to do what she did.’
With that, Louis terminated the call. Before any of his father’s poison could get to him. Before he could wonder at how, since Alex had come into his life, he suddenly had the strength to turn the tables on his father.
And that was just the start, he thought triumphantly. With her by his side, he could save Rainbow House for Alex, even if that meant temporarily claiming the birthright he’d refused to pursue all these years. The responsibility that he still didn’t care to take on.
Not that it mattered. Once things had settled down he would appoint a good chairman and leave the ship in some other captain’s eminently more capable control. As long as he had his surgeries. And Alex.
A Bride to Redeem Him Page 11